This is going to skip around a lot. Try to keep up.
For reasons I don't want to go into at the moment, I've had to have contact with doctors and other medical types. Blogging about the reason right now just feels like bad ju-ju.
However, knowing I needed to see a doctor, I decided to find a new one. My old doc is the type that will write you a scrip no matter why you are there to see him, loves to leave you waiting for well over two hours, and once told me I had sexy underwear. Creep.
I don't care for the total homeopathic type of doctor; I really can't see how a chiropractor can help with the flu and I'm already familiar with what most local herbs are capable of. I also didn't want another dr that would write scrips for symptoms while ignoring the cause. So I chose an
Osteopath, thinking I'd get a nice mix of the two.
The new doc is nice, the wait wasn't too long, and there were no comments on my underwear.
I did notice that the patient information included a little blurb about Medicaid and Medicare. Apparently, should I ever find myself old or indigent, I'll be immediately transferred to another physician. Not altogether comforting.
I learned a new word from the patient info packet:
hospitalist. That's a doctor that treats you while you are in the hospital. He/she does not have an office and patients of their own. They basically work for the hospital. In other words, I should not expect to see the new doc there.
I'm not quite old enough to remember doctors making house calls, but I do remember when it was your very own doctor that treated you during hospitalizations. Maybe he/she didn't do your surgery, but they at least made rounds and checked in on you once a day. In fact, I can recall choosing doctors based on which hospital they were affiliated with (we had two in that town). And it really wasn't that long ago that, if you had to make an ER visit, your very own doctor would meet you there! But I digress.
I was also shocked at the number of displays advertising new prescription medications, since O.D.s are supposed to lean toward an overall wellness. That's where I learned that I could grow lovely, long, thick
eyelashes, as long as I continue to use the medication as prescribed. Once you stop using it, I guess you get bald eyelids. Or at least you are back to your old, puny, useless eyelashes that are only good for keeping stuff out of your eyes and no where near what you need to flutter at passing millionaires. I couldn't even count the number of beauty products available for purchase directly from the doctor.
There was an infomercial for the
Obagi system running in the lobby, for crying out loud. And, well, after sitting through it three or four times, I was curious, so I looked it up.
This product supposedly will leave you with a baby butt complexion, but only after you are confined to the house for several weeks, out of sheer embarrassment, with what looks like severe leprosy of the face.
The infomercial boasts that no face powder or foundation was used on the patients during their makeover in the 'after' segment. We aren't supposed to notice the perfectly placed, very bright lighting that keeps wrinkles from casting shadows, sags, bags and freckles from showing. You want to impress me? Let's see these ladies first thing in the morning (forget hair and makeup artists; I'm talking straight out of bed, robe and fuzzy slippers, groggy and coffee-less) outside in REAL sunlight.
Whatever happened to growing old gracefully? Why is it that we are, once we hit 30, supposed to have repeated tucks, tightenings, and lifts? By the time we hit 40, our eyebrows will be so high on our foreheads we'll wear a look of perpetual surprise.
The medical industry is ready to ward off those encroaching years:
There are prescription drops to brighten the whites of your eyes, in case your eyeballs look old and yellow.
You can get collagen (or even some of your own butt fat) injected into your lips, to give them that full, pouting, I am a fish, stick me to a window look.
How about a bit of botulism? We'll just inject it right here, into your forehead, so nothing above your eyelids will move. Have you noticed that, somewhere along the way, we've stopped expecting actresses to actually show emotion by facial expression? They all just look surprised, no matter what they are portraying.
Gravity? Not a problem. We'll just move those boobs right here, under your chin, to catch any dribbles from your non-fat, non-dairy, non-flavorful, non-food. Never mind that no woman naturally has boobs directly under her chin.
Get lots of exercise in an indoor gym, then hit the tanning beds so you look like you've been outside, but don't -whatever you do- get out in the sun! You may get a wrinkle!
No longer do we just have to worry about driving the right cars, wearing the right clothes, and having the right address. Now we have to deal with the fact that society expects us to be ageless. Lovely. And the gals we are supposed to look like? Those modeling the cosmetics/clothes/whatever? They don't even exist! Remember the Dove Evolution commercial?
I gave up the 'keeping up with the Jones' life when my ex and I split. Among other issues, that life really just wasn't a happy one.
Homesteading must be the antithesis of the 'keeping up with the Jones' life. Hubby (the perfect one that I have now) and I are very happy. I never had a wrinkle before he came along, and now my eyes are all crinkly when I smile, which is often.
There are people that would love to have nothing more to worry about than thin eyelashes. There are cancer patients that would give anything to have those ten pounds you can't seem to shake. And if you are spending all of your time worrying about your lines, wrinkles, and sagging boobs, then you are not living your life.
Go. Live. Laugh. Love. And may all of your wrinkles be laugh lines.
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